cover image Do I Have to Say Hello?

Do I Have to Say Hello?

Delia Ephron. Viking Books, $14.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-670-82855-5

Acting in loco parentis, Ephron's ``Aunt Delia'' and ``Uncle Jerry'' try to effect behavior modification in their farouche little kin, whom they invite to take a manners quiz. The results appear in New Yorker cartoonist Koren's drawings, as drolly sympathetic as his illustrations for the author's bestsellers, How to Eat Like a Child and Teenage Romance . An expert on the indignities inflicted on adults by beloved children, Ephron raises audible laughs as she makes painfully clear the difference between ways we hope small fry will act and the ways they do. In chapters covering fraught topics such as restaurant manners and proper behavior at the beach, Ephron's multiple-choice responses to crucial etiquette questions run the gamut of acceptable and not-so-social deportment. Everyone involved with children will recognize and enjoy (if ruefully) the trials so humorously presented by writer and artist. 50,000 first printing; first serial to Redbook and the New York Times; BOMC alternate. (Nov.)